


Together in Paris

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Anastasia AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 01:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2604410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anastasia AU. Clarke is eighteen years old and has no memories or clues from her childhood other than an old watch. Bellamy is looking for a girl to play the part of the long-lost council member's daughter. Both are trying to get to Paris. What begins strictly as a mutually beneficial business partnership might end up becoming something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was mid-December, and the council members were throwing an extravagant ball. The chancellor and his son, all of the council members and their families, and everybody who was anybody was going to be there, or at least that was what Clarisse had been told. She had also been told that she’d have to wear a dress for the occasion, and while she’d initially protested Clarisse found she didn't actually mind it too much when she saw how elegant her parents looked in their fancy clothes.

The ball was in celebration of Unity Day, and it was being thrown at what was called the Ark, a palace-like building that housed most of the higher-ups in the government, along with nearly a hundred servants.

  
Clarisse spent most of the night running around the room with Wells, the chancellor's son. At eight years old, he was almost a whole year older than her, but the two had been best friends since before either could remember. Clarisse, with her mother Abigail a respected doctor and a member of the council, and Wells, with his father the chancellor and leader of the whole nation, were the only children any council members had. Clarisse didn't understand it much, but she’d heard it mentioned a few times that people weren't allowed to have more than one child, and many chose not to have any at all. She didn’t put much thought into it.

  
The ball was going well; the people were happy, the air had a light and joyous feel to it, and the music was rich and kept people dancing. Clarisse loved watching all of the dresses spin, the vibrant colors whirling around in wide circles. Chancellor Jaha, with a smile on his face, had suggested she and Wells dance, but they both adamantly refused as their parents laughed.

  
Partway through the night, Clarisse went to her father. She sat on his lap, grinning up at him. She loved her father, but the past few days she’d been spending more time with him because he was leaving in a few days for business in Paris. It was her father’s favorite city, he’d said, though Clarisse had never been there before.

As he was about to speak to her, a boy ran out of the kitchen doors beside where they were sitting and stopped, looking around him at the room full of people. He looked only a few years older than her, but was dressed like the servants and had an apple in one of his hands and a grin on his face. He looked out in awe at the room in front of him.

  
Clarisse and her father seemed to be the only people in the room to notice him, though he didn't notice them. As quickly as he'd appeared, a woman ran out after him.

  
"Bellamy!" she hissed, dragging him back by one arm, "I told you, you can't be out here."

  
As quickly as he’d appeared, both the woman and the boy were gone, the kitchen doors swinging shut behind them.

  
Clarisse’s father smiled, not thinking much on it apparently, and returned his attention to her.

"I know you were upset about me having to leave soon,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “and even though it’s only for a few weeks, I decided to give you something to have to help you think of me." He held up his old watch, his smile widening as he watched her reaction.

  
Clarisse beamed in delight at the sight of it; it was old and nearly nonfunctional and cracking a bit over the twelve, but she had always loved it and tried to take it off him when he wasn’t paying attention.

  
“I had it engraved on the back,” he said, turning it in his hand to show her. Together in Paris was carved in beautiful cursive letters.

  
“Together?” she asked. “I thought you were going alone.”

  
“You, your mother, and I are all going together this summer,” he said. “We’re already planning it.”

  
“Really?” Her eyes lit up as her father nodded. “Thank you!” Clarisse threw her arms around him and he laughed, returning the hug. She put the watch on her wrist, and though at the smallest notch it was still a little loose, she admired it with pride and joy.

  
“You already gave it to her and you told her?” Her mother joined them, standing at her husband’s side. Clarisse jumped up and held out her wrist, showing her mother her magnificent new gift, but before the conversation could continue the room’s mood drastically changed.

  
People stopped talking abruptly. The band stopped playing their light waltz. The windows’ iron reinforcements— saved for when the Ark was under attack— fell and most of the lights in the room extinguished. Half of the guardsmen in the room drew their weapons menacingly as a group of people entered the room at the opposite end of the hall. People began screaming and running for exits, but the armed half of the guard stood at all of them, blocking all of the main exits.

  
Before Clarisse could comprehend what was going on, her mother grabbed her by the hand and pulled her toward the kitchen door a few feet away.

  
“Jake, come on!” Her mother’s voice was quiet but it cut through the noise now happening at the other side of the room.

  
Clarisse reached for her father with her other hand, but never felt him.

  
They ran through the kitchen door, Abigail motioning for all of the servants to leave quickly as well.

  
“Here, I know a way out,” a voice said, and they were following someone out a door and down a hallway Clarisse had never seen before. She glanced around her mother and saw the boy from earlier leading them.

  
They reached an exit and found themselves walking out from behind a bookcase in the Ark’s library. The boy ran across the room and opened a panel in the wall, revealing a small passageway. Before Abigail or Clarisse could move, they heard heavy footsteps outside the door.

  
“Come on,” the boy said, waving them over. As they climbed in, he added, “Keep going and you’ll reach the corner observatory. You can get out through there.” The boy closed the panel with that, and a few seconds later they heard the library doors open with a crash. Abigail pulled Clarisse away, down the passageway and toward their escape.

  
Clarisse heard the guards enter the library, but nothing after that.

  
They eventually made it out of the Ark and to the train station, which was nearing riot conditions. People were screaming about a revolution and boarding trains as fast as they could. The snow was coming down hard, and the platforms were icy and buzzing with panicking people quickly moving to where they needed to be.

  
Abigail spotted a train beginning to pull out of the station and ran toward it, pulling Clarisse along.

  
“We’re gonna make it, Clarisse. We can make it,” Abigail said as they ran, dodging people and running up to the end of the train.

  
Abigail jumped onto the back deck of the train, where a few men helped her steady herself. As she’d jumped, though, she lost Clarisse’s hand.

  
“Mom!” Clarisse cried, running as fast as her tired legs could carry her.

  
She reached for her mother’s hand, for her safety and escape, and instead felt herself misstep and slip on a patch of ice. Hitting her head off the ground with a loud thud, Clarisse’s vision blurred and hearing dulled. The last thing she could focus on before loosing consciousness was the sound of her mother’s voice calling out her name from the back of the departing train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes about things that are different from the movie: I chose to call her Clarisse here because in the movie it's Anastasia/Anya and Clarke sounded less regal and I didn't want to call her a different name the entire time, so Clarisse in the prologue it is. I'm also choosing to not include any kind of Rasputin character, just because I don't think it really needs it for the purposes of this story and because I don't think any of The 100 characters match that. As for the "together in Paris" bit: I kept it as Paris because "together at Mt Weather" sounded stupid. They don't live in Russia because I'm not including any aspects of Russian culture, so the country they live in isn't going to be mentioned. Anyways I hope you like it so far!


	2. Chapter 2

10 Years Later

 

Clarke was given one final shove out of the house she’d spent the last ten years in, catching herself before falling face down in the snow.

“I got you a job at the factory, you should be grateful. Keep walking ’til you get to the fork in the— are you listening to me?” Her foster mother grabbed her by the scarf and turned her back around to face her. “Go left there, and keep walking. You’re eighteen now, so you’re gone. Don’t expect to come back here.”

With that, the door was closed and Clarke was as alone as she’d ever been. She’d been found ten years before with no memory of where she came from, nothing to give her any indication besides the old loose watch on her wrist.

Turning around, she played with the watch with her opposite hand, spinning it around her wrist idly, an act she’d noticed she did for comfort.

Clarke walked down the path, tightening her scarf. No matter what she seemed to do, the end always ended up dragging on the ground anyway.

_Together in Paris,_ the inscription on the watch read. She’d read it over and over for the past ten years, wondering who was in Paris waiting for her and never being able to go. Whoever gave her the watch, or whomever it belonged to, must know something about her. Maybe that person loved her once.

She could already see the fork in the road up ahead. Left would lead her to the factory district and a life of hard work, monotony, and in the long run nothing worth going that way for besides a small paycheck.

Reaching the fork, she stopped.

Where left led to the factories, the right led to the city. That was the way to something more, a way out, and potentially an understanding of who she was. The city meant opportunity, and Clarke wondered if whatever was that way was worth the risk.

Standing at a fork in the road, contemplating which path to take. How poetic.

With a sigh, she sat on the mound of snow next to the sign, putting her head in her hands. Opportunity meant the chance of finding nothing, or finding something she wished she hadn’t.

Not for the first time, Clarke wished for a sign, a hint, anything to tell her what to do and what was out there.

Clarke dropped her hands and sighed again, her breath appearing in the cold air before her. It was time to make a decision, and she couldn’t sit out here forever. She’d have to make up her mind herself, unless whatever gods decided to give her a sign.

With that thought, Clarke felt a tugging on her scarf from behind. Standing and turning, she saw the end of it in the mouth of a small dog that appeared to have the intentions of playing with her.

“Hey!” Clarke said, smiling and pulling on her scarf. The dog ran, wrapping the scarf around her in the process. She spun to keep herself from getting too tangled but ended up slipping and falling backwards on the ground.

Opening her eyes slowly, she saw the dog was now standing on the mound of snow she’d been sitting on and was looking at her with curiosity. From her position, it looked like the dog was just standing on just sky.

Clarke sat up, righting herself after the fall. She reached for the dog, which let her pick it up with enthusiasm.

“Come here, Spacewalker,” she said, likening its nickname to the view she’d had a moment before.

The dog suddenly twisted out of her hands and took off down the right path. Clarke watched it go for a moment and found herself sighing again.

Pulling herself to her feet, she walked down the path after the dog and toward the city.

…

“Clarisse was blonde. Why’d we even see that last girl?” Monty asked, twisting in his chair to face his two partners. The door slammed shut loudly behind the girl as she left, the noise bouncing off the old library walls. They were in The Ark, now long abandoned, and the line of potentials Jasper had somehow found had stretched nearly to the ballroom when they first started auditioning.

“When I asked her to try out, I saw that she had the mole above her lip. I figured we could dye her hair if everything else about her fit.” Jasper sat in the middle of the trio, glancing up at the next girl entered the room.

“And what about when it wore off?” Monty responded. Both of them were ignoring the girl currently in front of them, and their third partner Bellamy seemed to be ignoring everything around him, staring off at nothing with a frown and crossed arms.

“It would’ve gotten us the reward, and by the time the dye wore off—”

“Next, please!” Bellamy suddenly cut in loudly, effectively putting an end to Jasper and Monty’s drawn-out discussion.

“Hey, I think that girl had some real potential,” Jasper said as she left, throwing confused glances at Bellamy as she did. “We didn’t even get to hear her talk.”

“That girl was about seven feet tall and had brown eyes. How’d you pick these girls, Jasper? Anybody under the age of fifty?” Bellamy looked from Jasper to Monty before uneasily adding, “How many more are there?”

“None,” Jasper said, sinking back in his chair. “That was the last one. I didn’t think she was half bad.”

“That’s the problem, Jasper. You don’t think.” Bellamy stood up angrily and took a few steps away from them, stopping in front of one of the old broken bookcases. “The right girl has to be somewhere. We’ll find her,” he said after a moment in a much calmer voice.

“Not if Jasper’s the one looking for her,” Monty added quietly.

Bellamy sighed, turning around to face them. Before he could say anything, a distant but still fairly loud crash echoed through the halls of The Ark.

“Did you hear that?” Jasper asked, looking from Monty to Bellamy.

…

Clarke fell backwards onto the ground, pushing the piece of wood she’d pulled off the door off her leg and away from her. She stood and picked Spacewalker up and with little trouble fit herself through the hole in the door.

The room she found herself in was elegant, even after years of abandonment and looting. The walls near the ground were bare and damaged, but far above her head hung elegant paintings and crests still untouched.

As Clarke looked at the paintings, she wondered why she’d bothered coming her. After being denied a ticket at the train station because she had no papers, a woman had approached her and said that there were people at the Ark that could help her. The whole thing seemed really shady, but Clarke was desperate for answers and for a chance to get to Paris.

The room opened up into an even larger room with nothing but a broken chandelier in the middle of the floor. Most of the large windows going around the top of the room were covered in iron, but a few had been raised at some point and warm yellow light shined down through the dusty windows. The lighting was poor, but Clarke could see a large portrait at the opposite end of the hall.

Clarke set Spacewalker down, who immediately ran in the direction of the portrait. Following, the dog led her across the ballroom and up the small staircase to stand at the base of the painting.

It was a portrait of the last council, the ones that had been killed almost ten years ago during the Unity Day uprising. Clarke’s eyes lingered on Abigail Griffin, the one survivor of the attack. Clarke thought she looked elegant here in this picture.

Looking at the different faces, Clarke thought for a second that it all felt familiar. This room, these people, being here; it was like something from a dream. She saw a flash in her mind— colorful dresses spinning— and she had to step back to steady herself.

“What are you doing in here?” a deep male voice called out, pulling her from her thoughts with a jump. Spacewalker barked at the intruder.

“Why do you have a dog with you?” a second, gentler voice added.

Clarke turned around slowly, preparing herself to take off running if need be. Three men stood at the bottom of the small staircase, looking expectantly up at her. Two of them looked nice and seemed harmless enough. One of those two had goggles around his head and seemed more scared and confused than angry at her for trespassing. The third, much larger man, however, seemed fuming and about ready to explode.

Upon seeing her face, all three of the men’s expressions changed.

“Holy shit,” the one wearing goggles said.

“Do you guys see what I see?” the other nice-looking one said.

“What are you doing in here?” the angry looking man repeated as he walked up the stairs toward her. “How’d you get in? People aren’t supposed to be in here.”

“You’re in here,” Clarke commented as he approached. The man looked her up and down and Clarke shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, noting that a few times he looked up to the painting behind her and back.

“What he means to say,” Goggles said, running up the stairs after his friend, “is hello, and welcome to the Ark. I’m Jasper, and this is Bellamy, and he’s Monty.”

“Clarke,” she said. Spacewalker was at Monty’s feet, begging to be picked up.

“Cute dog,” he said. “Is he safe to pet?”

“I think so. I found him today, but as far as I can tell he’s nice.”

“Say, Clarke,” Jasper said, pulling her aside, “has anybody ever told you that you look like the Griffins? Particularly Clarisse?”

Clarke blinked. “No, I don’t think so. Look, I’ll just get out of your hair…”

She moved to leave, but Jasper stepped in her path.

“Wait, Clarke! Don’t leave,” Jasper said. “Can I talk to you about something?”

She tilted her head and lowered her eyebrows. She stood partly turned away from them in what she was sure looked more defensive than anything. “Sure. What about?”

“How about your family?” Jasper asked.

“Don’t have one,” Clarke said. “I was found wandering the day after the Unity Day revolution. I can’t remember anything before that. My guess is we got separated during the riots and the trauma made me forget. The only thing I have is this watch—” she held up her wrist, “—with an inscription on the inside. ‘Together in Paris.’”

Jasper glanced back at the other two; Monty was petting Spacewalker and Bellamy was standing back with his arms crossed, but they both had the same expression.

“Clarke, have you heard about Abigail Griffin?” Monty asked.

“Of course. She’s the one that survived the uprising. Everybody knows her.”

“I mean, have you heard about what she’s doing now?”

Clarke looked between the three men, trying to figure out what they were getting at. Most people had heard about Abigail Griffin and how she’d recently started seeing girls in Paris that claimed to be Clarisse, Abigail’s daughter, who until recently was thought to be dead like all the others. Abigail had said that when she escaped, Clarisse had been with her until she got lost.

“Yeah, I heard. What about it?”

“You said don’t have any memory of before the Unity Day uprising?” Jasper asked.

“Yeah. I didn’t even know my own name for a few days. Eventually ‘Clarke’ came to me, but nothing else did. Anyways, I came here because I need travel papers, and they told me to come here,” Clarke tried moving the conversation on, not wanting to talk about this with these people she didn’t know.

“So you have no memory of who you were before ten years ago, the exact same time Clarisse went missing, and you have an engraved watch that has the name of the city the only surviving family member is in, and you look just like her, and you don’t think there’s even a chance that you’re Clarisse?” Jasper said, ignoring her attempt at a conversation shift.

Clarke looked from Jasper, with his hopeful expression, to Monty, who seemed busy with Spacewalker, to Bellamy, who still looked annoyed by her presence.

“You think I’m Clarisse?” she asked.

“Have you ever thought of the possibility?” Jasper said.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine yourself as the daughter of a councilmember when you’re sleeping on a damp floor, but sure. I guess everybody’s imagined they’re special at some point in their life.”

“But have you considered the fact that you could be Clarisse specifically? You really do look just like her.”

“I don’t look that much like her. It’s just the blonde hair.”

“And the birthmark,” Jasper said, pointing above his own lip.

“And the eyes,” Bellamy added, speaking for the first time in a while.

“I suppose, logically, it could be possible,” Clarke said slowly, “but I don’t think so. Besides a couple of coincidences, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re her or not,” Bellamy said, stepping toward her and Jasper. “All that matters is that you look like her.”

“Why are you so interested in Clarisse and Abigail Griffin, huh?” Clarke asked, stepping toward him. He was easily half a foot taller than her and his broad shoulders and muscular build made him almost intimidating, though she didn’t let it show as she stood looking straight up at him.

“Oh, you know. Patriotism, sense of duty, whatever makes your heart beat faster, princess.” His smirk was taunting and his eyes cut through her, but she tilted her head and smiled right back. They were standing close to each other now, only about a foot between them.

“I think you’re in it for whatever reward you think you’ll get if you bring her back to Abigail Griffin. I think that you don’t care that you’d be lying to a mother that lost her child. I think you’re a selfish ass that just wants quick money.”

“All of that may be true, but that doesn’t matter,” Bellamy said. “Before you meet Abigail, you meet somebody else. You have to be good enough to convince that person.”

“By lying to them.”

“Or, by actually being her. If we pass that person’s test, only then do we get to meet Abigail. And if you’re good enough to pass that first person’s test, your options are either you meet Abigail and she kicks you out, no harm no foul, or you meet Abigail and she believes you, whatever you choose for that to mean.”

“Except ‘no harm no foul’ means upsetting a woman just looking for her daughter.”

“She’s searching the world for Clarisse. She’s bound to see more than one girl lying, and you, for all we know, might not even by lying.”

“And what about me? What happens if I’m not her and she kicks me out? You take the reward and I’m stranded there?”

“I thought you were just looking for a way to Paris,” Bellamy said. “We’re offering you a free way there.”

Clarke thought it over. It was a fairly good deal, given that she didn’t know these three guys and they might kill her at some point. After she helped them and failed, she could pick up the search for her family

Plus, the idea that she could be Clarisse was still there in her mind.

“I want forty percent of the reward, if we get it,” Clarke said firmly.

“What?” Jasper cried.

“No way,” Bellamy said. “That’d be you getting double what each of us get separately.”

“I’m the one doing all of the work. I’m the one lying to this woman. I want forty, or I walk.”

“Thirty,” Bellamy offered.

“Fifty.” Clarke raised an eyebrow, testing him. His jaw clenched and he looked at the ground in front of him, thinking it over.

“Fine. You can have forty percent.” The bitterness in his voice was music to Clarke’s ears. “So you’re gonna do it?”

“I’m gonna do it. You have your Clarisse,” she said. Clarke smiled, looking to Bellamy. “But I get to bring my dog.”

“Absolutely not,” he said, crossing his arms. “You found it today. Why do you even want to bring it?”

“I like him,” Clarke said, though the real reason was to see how far she could push Bellamy. “And he’s better company than you’ll end up being, I’m guessing.”

Bellamy’s jaw clenched. Clarke smiled at him innocently

“Oh, come on, Bell. Why not?” Jasper said. “That’s nothing.”

“I guess you don’t need your Clarisse that bad after all,” Clarke said, picking up Spacewalker and turning to leave. She began to walk down the steps toward the exit, wondering if Bellamy would call her bluff and if she’d keep walking and actually leave if he didn’t.

She’d made it nearly to the bottom of the stairs when he called out, “Fine! But if it barks once on the train, I’m throwing it off the back.”

“Deal,” Clarke said, setting down Spacewalker who immediately ran back toward the boys.

“What’s its name?” Monty asked, kneeling to pet him.

“I’ve been calling him Spacewalker,” Clarke said, feeling somewhat foolish as soon as she’d said it.

“Spacewalker?” Bellamy questioned when neither Jasper nor Monty seemed to notice or care. “The hell kind of name is Spacewalker?”

“The hell kind of name is Bellamy?” Clarke raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for his response. When he didn’t have one and instead huffed and crossed his arms again, turning away and pretending to look at the painting, Clarke smiled.

Jasper then spread his arms and yelled through the empty ballroom, “May I present, her Highness Clarisse Griffin!”

Clarke and Monty laughed, but Bellamy rolled his eyes.

“Just get your damn dog and pack your things. _Her highness_ is going to Paris.”


End file.
